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Join us at Our 2016 Foundation of Art Award Exhibit

To celebrate the ninth year of our Foundation of Art Award, we are hosting an art exhibit featuring the talented 2016 nominees and our 2016 winning artist: Sean Alexander. You can learn more about this year’s 16 talented artists by checking out their biography’s, galleries and websites listed below.

SEAN ALEXANDER-2016 AWARD WINNER!Sean Alexander is a multi-disciplinary artist/designer from Tacoma, Washington. His art projects have included detailed pen drawings, furniture building, digital manipulation, writing and conceptual/social experimentation. Outside of his practice as an artist, Sean co-owns a local design studio called AM Independent. His past community projects include founding The Helm Gallery (’06-’08) and the Squeak and Squawk Music Festival.

SILONG CHHUNBorn during the Khmer Rouge Regime, Silong’s family immigrated to America and settled in Tacoma, WA where he would eventually discover his love for art and music. By the age of seventeen, Silong was playing piano, bass, guitar, as well as making beats. He graduated with an audio degree from the Art Institute of Seattle. In 2013, Silong launched Red Scarf Revolution. With its mission to be more than just another clothing label, Red Scarf Revolution gives voice to the once silenced art, culture, and language. It’s most important purpose is memorializing the darkest tragedy in the history of Cambodia with designs that represent the resiliency of the Cambodian people. From his music production to his, “awareness by design,” Silong has cultivated a fresh new movement that encourages the Cambodian diaspora around the world to be proud of their heritage once again.

ANDREW DEEMAndrew Deem was born in Tacoma, Washington and attended Charles Wright Academy where he became interested in ceramics. He also sang with the Tacoma Youth Chorus under the direction of Judith Herrington until his graduation from high school in 2008. He continued to study ceramics and sing choral music at Pacific Lutheran University until his graduation in 2012. Later that year he moved to London, United Kingdom to pursuit a MA at the Royal College of Art. During his studies he focused on qualities of porcelain that are normally discarded from craft and industry. He also began showing his work with the Cynthia Corbett Gallery debuting the Young Master’s Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize. After his graduation in 2014 Deem returned to Tacoma, Washington to work for the Clay Art Center INC and establish his first studio. He continues to show with the Cynthia Corbett Gallery both nationally and internationally.

TODD JANNAUSCHTodd’s path to art was not traditional. As an outsider artist the skills and techniques he uses to create art derive from working as a shipwright and craftsman in both boatyards and construction sites. His concepts and visual aesthetic are influenced by these experiences as well. Approaching art in this way, as an outsider in the field, created a desire to increase accessibility in the arts for the entire community. This desire has split his practice between creating community focused projects that create accessibility in the arts and creating studio work that he believe resonates because of its familiarity and even its commonality. Todd’s sculptural studio practice has also continued to evolve over time symbiotically with these ideas of community, commonality, and the arts. His work focuses on removing the purpose of common everyday objects in hopes of revealing the personal relationships we form with them.

In 2015, he founded Feast Arts Center in the underserved neighborhood of Hilltop in Tacoma, Washington. The guiding concept at Feast is the belief that community involvement enriches personal experience, that personal experience informs art making, and that art making strengthens communities. The undertaking of Feast is a giant experiment, using the platform of the building as a medium to activate the neighborhood and city around it.

MARIA JOSTThe intricate patterns in nature, from the repetitive fractal arrangements of ferns and feathers to the complex relationships among organisms in an ecosystem, provide aesthetic and thematic inspiration for Maria’s illustrations. Maria has paired the subjects of art and science her whole life, and studied both simultaneously at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. Following college, she has worked as a laboratory technician, field scientist, and science educator, all the while artistically exploring the organisms of the Pacific Northwest through detailed observations and a growing understanding of their ecological, evolutionary and molecular processes. Maria uses watercolor, ink and collage to create her art, and hopes her work to be both informative and magical.

CHRIS JOHNSONChris began his studio artist career at Portland Community College where he studied ceramics. Chris then worked and learned under the professional guidance of his father-in-law, the late Jay Stewart of Otter Woods Pottery studio in Hamlet, Oregon. After his apprenticeship under Jay, he completed a six-month Artist-in-Residency at the Rochester Folk Art Guild in Middlesex, New York. In 2009, Chris established his own studio in Tacoma, Washington, making pots and working for Seattle Ceramist Matthew Patton. In 2012, with his wife Rebecca, Chris moved back to the Oregon coast community, working in the studio at Otter Woods Pottery, continuing the tradition Jay Stewart established 35 years ago. In May of 2015, Otter Woods Pottery studio and the property the Stewart Family owned, was put on the market and sold. Shortly thereafter, Chris and Rebecca relocated back to the South Puget Sound Region, with new studio prospects and new full time employment for Rebecca. In September of 2015, Chris found a welcome new studio space to rent from local Salt Fire Ceramic Artist.

ALICIA DAWN MIRANDAAlicia has worked in the custom automotive paint industry for 20 years. She attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising and The Art Institute of Seattle, where she studied visual communications. Alicia has worked in fashion and as a wall mural artist. Her current focus is on custom painting of motorcycles and cars.

ZACHARY MARVICKZachary Marvick is co-founder and creative director at AM Independent, a design studio in Tacoma, WA. Marvick grew up in Tacoma and strongly identifies with the region. The rainy days are conducive to a studio practice which is now 18 years in the making. Marvick completed his bachelor’s degree at the Evergreen State College in 2007 where he studied a wide range of art and design disciplines with a conceptual focus on place-making and American identity. Marvick has lived in Olympia, WA, Brooklyn, NY, South Korea and most recently Portland, OR, where he graduated with a second BFA in Communication Design. Marvick works in an interdisciplinary capacity staying focused on the intersections of art, design, and the humanities.

NICHOLAS NYLANDNicholas Nyland lives and works in Tacoma, WA. He received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. His artwork has been included in exhibitions throughout the region including the Tacoma Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle. A 2012 Solo exhibition at Prole Drift, Seattle was reviewed in Art in America magazine. Recent public projects include temporary works for the Olympic Sculpture Park and ALL RISE, Seattle. Nyland received an Artist Trust Fellowship in 2008 and was a finalist for the 2013 Contemporary Northwest Art Award.

MATTHEW OLDSMatthew was born in the sweltering summer of 1977 in Green Bay Wisconsin, a blue-collar hard-working industrial port town not unlike Tacoma. Upon finding Tacoma, it seemed so familiar to him in the truest sense of the word, that when he laid his weary eyes upon her bustling mills and felt her warm sulfurous embrace that he realized, not until then, and not a single moment before, that he was finally, and with great fortune, home. Matthew lives and works in Tacoma with his amazing wife and two lovely and exuberant daughters (4 and 6) and has been a practicing exhibiting artist since 1999 in the Pacific Northwest. Matthew and his wife founded HOLDstudios – A diverse fine arts company in 2003 and they work with artists, galleries, institutions, corporations, and collections from across the country on a variety of fabrications, consultations, and installations and more.

AMY REEVESAmy Reeves has been making metal jewelry since 1992. After receiving a BFA in Metal Design from the University of Washington, she began working as a fulltime professional goldsmith. Her work and technical articles have been featured in publications like Art Jewelry and 500 Bracelets. She has taught across the Puget Sound area in schools such as Pratt Fine Arts Center, North Seattle Community College, Tacoma Community College, and Evergreen State College, among others. Seeing a need for a metals venue in Tacoma, and wanting to share her knowledge and passion with her own community, she decided to start a jewelry making and metalsmithing school in Tacoma. Amy opened Tacoma Metal Arts Center in December 2009. Starting with herself as the only instructor it has now grown into having more than 15 highly skilled instructors teaching over 70 different classes throughout the year, to support a community of jewelry artists.

CLAUDIA RIEDENERClaudia Riedener is a ceramic tile maker, artist, nature and plant enthusiast. Originally from Switzerland, her love for nature started as a child growing up on a small vegetable, fruit and dairy farm. After working as a medical technical assistant Claudia moved from Switzerland to Chicago in 1992, where she studied horticulture. She worked at the Chicago Botanic Garden before relocating to Tacoma in 1998. Here Riedener became a self-taught ceramic artist and now creates ceramic tile for private, commercial and public installations. Her work has been shown Art on Center, Woolworth Windows, Museum of Flight in Seattle, Northwest Craft Center, Working Waterfront Maritime Museum, Impromptu Gallery, W.W. Seymour Conservatory and Moss & Mineral. Permanent public installations can be seen at McCarver Elementary School, Point Ruston Waterwalk, Masa Restaurant Tacoma, South Tacoma Public Library, Bellarmine Preparatory School, MultiCare Tree House Tacoma, Sagebrush Elementary School Moses Lake and Beacon Hill Food Forest Seattle. Riedener is deeply involved with the Tacoma arts community and has organized and curated a series of events, shows and permanent installations over the last 15 years.

JASON SOBOTTKAJason Sobottka is a professional artist and arts educator. He is Lake Washington Institute of Technology’s first tenured visual art instructor. He exhibits his paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures around the nation. Jason was awarded the Winter 2012 Faculty Excellence Award. Recently, Jason was an artist-mentor for the Puget Sound Education Service District’s Arts Impact teacher training program. In his role, Jason worked with middle-school math teachers to embed visual arts lessons into math curriculum, as part of a research study. Jason taught drawing and printmaking at the University of Minnesota between 1999 and 2001 and was a part-time drawing, painting and design instructor at Green River Community College from 2001 through 2008. His past experience includes working for Tacoma Art Museum’s Education Department, where he designed and built the museum’s hands-on art making gallery, the Open Art Studio. Jason earned his Masters of Fine Art degree in visual art (with a minor in related fields-art history) from the University of Minnesota and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from the University of Montana. He also holds an Associates Degree from Grays Harbor College.

DION THOMASBorn and raised in the City of Destiny, Dion is a proud native of Tacoma, WA. He grew up primarily on the Eastside of town but also spent time in Tacoma’s notorious Hilltop neighborhood as well. Dion is an active PTA member and volunteer at his children’s schools Sheridan Elementary. He studied Media Design and Production which gives him an array of skills in that realm ranging from graphic design, videography, photography, and web design. He is currently pursuing a Bachelors Degree from The Evergreen State College-Tacoma. Upon completion he will be the first member of his family to graduate college. Dion has made it his personal mission as an artist and activist to improve the perception and conditions in the city of Tacoma. Through various projects, events and entrepreneurial endeavors he’s had a very successful campaign restoring a sense of pride in Tacomans. Man about town and intricate piece of the city’s art and fashion scene, Dion uses his influence to create positive change and increase progressive thinking and creativity. With a vast network of community connections he is always eager to collaborate on projects, contribute ideas and share resources.

PEETA TINAYPeeta’s love of weaving grew from her wicker furniture restoration background which began in 1990 to 2000 in Berkeley California. Instantaneously her passion for craft and design was ignited! The restoration of antique and contemporary wicker furniture ran the gamut from simple cane wrap replacements on the legs of chairs to full reweaves of chairs, tables, and planters etc. The blending of old to new finishes also became an important part of the restoration work. It was during the early 1990’s that she began teaching basketry as well. A move to the Pacific Northwest in spring of 2000 provided the opportunity to start making woven home furnishings from the ground up using my own designs. Her work today is the culmination of 26 years ranging from woven restoration work, custom woven garment accents for a NYC fashion designer during Fashion Week Spring 2007, work with interior designers and her own basket work.

CHANDLER WOODFINChandler is a Tacoma-based painter and draftsman. Using watercolor and charcoal, she examines what it means to be human in both its personal and social contexts. She focuses on the moments in between action, the over-looked difficulties of our day-to-day existence, and tries to provide antidotes of comfort to our common ailments. Chandler received her BFA from Columbia College of Missouri, and completed a two-year painting apprentice-ship at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, WA. She has taught drawing and painting at Pratt Fine Arts Center, Gage Academy of Art and Kirkland Arts Center. She recently co-founded Feast Arts Center in Tacoma, Washington, and currently teaches there was well.